Consolidated Kansas

[chicken danz]

Taz it all depends. I think most of the time if I bring something it goes low. If I buy something it goes high!

Actually you can get some wonderful bargains on some quality birds or you can spend too much. It depends on the crowd, the weather, the order things are sold etc. If you can stand waiting until 3/4ths of the birds are sold you can usually get some awesome prices if there is still something you want. Just for exposure to all kinds of birds including caged birds this is an awesome place to go. Most of the people that sell at Gardner are well known breeders and sell good quality stuff. Many of them come from way out of state, Indiana, Ohio, Oklahoma, Missouri, Arkansas etc. Plus if a bird doesn't appear healthy it won't be allowed.
I'm kind of on the fence about selling this spring. If winter keeps coming I may wait and sell birds in the fall. It just all depends on weather and time. Selling is a major deal. You have to be there very early the day before the sale with your birds. The cages go with the birds so there's a lot of prep ahead of time. You will spend all day most likely just getting your birds checked in...unless you are lucky like me and get #1 when they draw for consignments. That meant my birds were the first to be checked in. Good for timing but there were a lot of people who hadn't arrived yet when they started selling so I lost some potential profit.
I love going whether I am buying or selling. I meet friends there I never get to see other wise from out of state. I am totally in my element and love love love looking at all the birds, rabbits or what have you.
Last fall I met ZigZag and his family, OkieQueenBee and KSKingBee for the first time. Plus saw several others I already knew.

 

[Ralph Moyer]

Danz, I used to go to a lot of estate and farm auctions, and usually if it was something I wanted ; it went for more than I was willing to pay for it. An auctioneer once told me that he sure liked to see me at his sales because a lot of the stuff would have sold dirt cheap! LOL

 

[KsKingBee]

So did you use closed cell foam or open cell foam? I've read a lot about this. I tried to get a guy to do my basement but he wanted me to get the wall studs up first. I have to have Air conditioning just to remove the humidity more than anything in the summer. I sweat profusely in high humidity regardless of temperature. Also who was the contractor that did the foam? I'd like to visit with someone other than this one guy I found.
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Name of the company is Kansas Foam, we will look for the name and contact number for you. I call our house the 'Mennonite Housing Project' because I hired a lot of Mennonites, they do good work and are basically honest people. I only had issues with one of the contractors trying to take advantage of us who must have thought we didn't know what's what. I garnered my information about foam from Kansas State research information posted on line, that is why we insulated the underdeck of the roof instead of the ceiling joists. The idea is to keep the heat and cold out in the first place and not having to heat and cool the insulation inside the house. IOW the insulation will act as a heat bank and hold heat in during the summer and take a long time that evening to cool down the insulation that is putting off heat against the ceiling. Putting the insulation against the roof keeps the heat out in the first place making the air in the attic dead air space and act as insulation itself.

We used open cell because it will let moisture seep through. IF we ever have a roof leak we will be able to know where it is as opposed to closed cell where the water will run down hill quite a ways from the leak and be hard to find where the leak comes from. You also have less issues with open cell and dry rot. Open cell is cheaper and you can actually buy more of it and more R value compared to closed cell where you have unlimited space like in an attic. In a 4 inch wall space closed would be better but again costs more.

We had contractors telling us the most outrageous things trying to sell us their product and services, that is why researching independent sources is important. The guy we went with was on the same page as us and was reasonably priced.

Foam will fill any cracks and gaps in the wall making a very good seal from drafts but the next and just important thing to consider is the windows and that is another education.

In our basement we put two inch foam board on the outside and under the concrete, foamed two foot down from the dirt line and fiberglass behind the walls. The walk out side is all foamed to ground level.

 

[tazcat70]

Ralph, that is what happened to me too! In fact I had the seller come up to me after the sale and thank me for coming. I was bidding on a house and they thought it was going to sell for 1/3 of what it ended up going for.

 

[KsKingBee]

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Last fall I met ZigZag and his family, OkieQueenBee and KSKingBee for the first time. Plus saw several others I already knew.

So that whacky blond was you?

Taz it all depends. I think most of the time if I bring something it goes low. If I buy something it goes high!

Actually you can get some wonderful bargains on some quality birds or you can spend too much. It depends on the crowd, the weather, the order things are sold etc. If you can stand waiting until 3/4ths of the birds are sold you can usually get some awesome prices if there is still something you want. Just for exposure to all kinds of birds including caged birds this is an awesome place to go. Most of the people that sell at Gardner are well known breeders and sell good quality stuff. .
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I thought that the spring was a sellers market and the fall was a buyers market?

 

[tazcat70]

Hmmm, that does make a lot of sense. People want birds in the Spring and not wanting to feed them over Winter.

 

[chicken danz]

Traditionally spring is the sellers market but you just never know how things will go. In fall people are trying to offload a lot of their excess so they don't have to feed them all winter.
Last spring I was there with my stuff at 7:00 am but missed the consignment drawing cause I went to the wrong building. I had lot numbe 952 through 957. So there were nearly a thousand cages before mine to get in the auction. My stuff didn't sell until after 7:00 Pm the next day and there was tons behind me. It was the biggest auction I have been to there. Even so I made decent money on my stuff with most of the people already gone.

 

[chicken danz]

I went out and attempted to feed the birds. I got the young ones that are confined to a building fed but then gave up. It's like 26 degrees and just enough air warmth to slightly melt the top of the ice. You can't walk out there. I had a couple hens come to see me and they were even slipping on the ice. It would have made a funny video. The only place I could walk was on the driveway where there was some texture. This sucks!
I am sure all the birds have some food and should have water. I just feel bad I can't get out there to check on all of them. Maybe tomorrow I can get out while it is still really cold before it begins to thaw.
BTW I have one turkey hatched. He was almost shrink wrapped. My humidity is running really low.

 

[sharol]

If you are going to have a wood stove in the house you can't beat what sharol has, the Earth Stove. That was my first stove back in the 80's and it was wonderful, a bit hard to clean out but the newer ones are better than the early ones I hear.

We bought it new in 2005 when we were rennovating the house. It was the last real Earth Stove. Lennox has bought them out and pretty much eliminated the catalytic technology. It isn't perfect, but it is frugal with wood and generous with heat output. I don't know that I would want it if I had small children, though. It could present serious danger for them.

 

[JosieChick]

Oh my goodness! She's adorable!!!

Lucky boy! Always nice to find a good roo a home and his own flock!

My beautiful BC Marans cockerel has a new home. He will have 6 hens of his own that are about his age and hatched at home, and he will be free ranging soon. Much better life for a nice bird.

I have to sneak up on them to get a pic that doesn't look like she is being abused!

Your dog Molly acts like my Jasmine, she never has liked cameras much, it makes you wonder what they think they are. It took me a long time to ever get pics of her, I usually have to catch her unaware for a minute. Oh wow Amelia looks like she's having a lot of fun, she's getting so big!

Right?! Guns and cameras elicit the same response from Molly! SO weird.

Sorry we had to move, I miss that house so much and wish we could have stayed in it. Homemade edible fingerpaints with cornstarch. Didn't taste very good but still safe to taste! She mostly had a blast squeezing it through her mitts and smearing it all over herself!

My dogs always duck their heads and slink away when I have a camera. They act like I am going to shoot them with it.
Amelia is such a cherub. Why the heck did you have to move away?? Fingerpaints? Are they edible ones?

It is miserable out. We were supposed to go to Botanica for family fun day this morning and the car had such a thick layer of ice on it I figured the roads weren't much better.

I went out and attempted to feed the birds. I got the young ones that are confined to a building fed but then gave up. It's like 26 degrees and just enough air warmth to slightly melt the top of the ice. You can't walk out there. I had a couple hens come to see me and they were even slipping on the ice. It would have made a funny video. The only place I could walk was on the driveway where there was some texture. This sucks!
I am sure all the birds have some food and should have water. I just feel bad I can't get out there to check on all of them. Maybe tomorrow I can get out while it is still really cold before it begins to thaw.
BTW I have one turkey hatched. He was almost shrink wrapped. My humidity is running really low.

Well it is a yucky day today. Kind of like last year where it was pretty decent up until February and then it rained/snowed/freezing rained/ice balled out for two and half months! Yuck. Hope we get some breaks from it. The house is quite chilly despite the woodstove cranking away and the heat kicking on regularly. We are going to have to cut some more wood, we got 3 cords this fall but it is mostly gone now. I hate to buy more because we were trying to save by heating with wood and with the cost of propane going up we probably still are saving but not if we have to order three more cords of wood!